


Last One Out Gets The Lights

by withlightning



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withlightning/pseuds/withlightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You gotta learn to say no.” </p><p>“And you, you need to learn to say yes once in a while.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last One Out Gets The Lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Severina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/gifts).



> This fic is a coda for 2.07 - and could basically happen anywhere between that episode and 2.11. So spoilers through 2.07.

Glenn finds him sitting under the tree next to his tent. He doesn’t mean to go look for anybody, but his feet carry him closer, the dry grass crackling under his shoes.

The air is heavy; there’s a storm on its way.

He gets closer to the tree, closer still, and leans his back against it. The bark feels rough through his shirt.

Clearing his throat he asks, ”What did you do? Before, I mean?” Because sometimes saying something is better than saying nothing.

Daryl is silent for the longest time, fingers intent, dancing on the edge of the blade he’s holding. “Nothin’,” he says, and this is something Glenn understands all too well.

“Just like me, then,” Glenn nods, gaze on the horizon. He used to think he was wasting his life. Now life is the one wasting him.

Dark clouds rise behind the farm house. The electricity in the air is palpable.

“Is all so fucked up,” Daryl says. His voice is missing attitude altogether.

Glenn takes a breath, won’t sag under the weight of the world. “I know,” he says because sometimes two words can be better than dozens.

The sky rumbles, flashes once, twice.

“I always wanted a dog,” he says out of the blue. It’s true, he did want one.

“Oh yeah?” Daryl says, lifts his head to look at Glenn. “Why wouldja wanna have a pesky thing like that?”

Glenn shrugs. “Seemed like something I would have liked, that’s all.”

Daryl keeps looking at him. Glenn feels as if he’s being judged and maybe he is; this is pretty much the longest conversation he’s ever had with Daryl. It’s enough for a re-evaluation of characters.

“Merle and I,” Daryl says, still looking at Glenn with intensity usually reserved for life-threatening situations, “we had one. This mangy, bony thing that used to follow us everywhere and was loyal as hell.” Daryl snorts but keeps his eyes on Glenn. “That’s what killed ‘im, bein’ so goddamn loyal.”

Glenn doesn’t ask what happened to the dog. He knows what happened to Merle and Sophia – all the way to the point they all know – and he can guess what happened to everyone else around Daryl. The same thing that happened to all of their friends and families. That’s enough.

“Sometimes it’s good to be loyal,” Glenn says.

Daryl’s back playing with the knife. The slope of his neck is smudged with dirt and Glenn’s fingers itch to rub it away. He shifts his gaze back at the sky.

The sky rumbles again, clouds rolling closer.

“And sometimes you oughta know to quit while you’re still ahead,” Daryl mutters under his breath.

And Daryl isn’t wrong; Glenn recognizes this. He is loyal almost to the fault. He was raised to be loyal; it isn’t something he knows how to turn off.

Glenn bites his lip, shuffles his feet.

“You gotta learn to say no,” Daryl says, the tone of his voice indescribable.

“And you,” Glenn replies without heat, “you need to learn to say yes once in a while.”

Daryl grunts in what Glenn thinks is agreement. His lips twist in amusement.

The darkness races to them; meadow blanketed in shadows. First droplets land on Glenn’s nose, on his arm.

It’s now or never, Glenn thinks and says, “There wasn’t anything you could have--” And he stops to suck in air, knows it’s pointless to say any of this. The fact doesn’t stop him from trying. “I mean, you know that, right?”

Daryl tenses, his body still in the wind before the storm. Glenn licks his upper lip, water cool on his skin. They stay quiet for a moment.

“Wanted to be an astronaut,” Daryl says quietly. “I was so dumb back then, didn’t know nothing ‘bout anything.”

Glenn knows some things are too hard to talk out. He takes what he can get. He’s never been too greedy.

“’Fore I know it, I’m doin’ lotta shit at that damn farm ‘cause Merle is gone and the old man is gone and it’s all just fine, all so damn fine and I was never gonna be a goddamn astronaut.”

The rain keeps falling harder. Glenn closes his eyes.

“And she was never gonna be an astronaut either,” Daryl says. “Or a horseback rider or a hunter.”

And this, here, this isn’t what Glenn was after – except he kind of was, and they both know it. He bites his lower lip and stays quiet.

“All she was ever gonna be was this thing that was wearin’ her shape, this thing no one—”

Glenn knows, oh god, he knows.

Daryl is shaking his head. “Shoulda been faster, shoulda run after—“

And Glenn wants to reach out, wants to say, _you did everything you could, jesus, you did the best out of us all_ , wants to touch the space between Daryl’s neck and shoulder, to wrap his palm and fingers over the shape of it, press his thumb in, shake and shake because, _jesus, you did more than enough and no one blames you, no one blames you, you have to believe us—_

“So fucking stupid—“

Glenn stands his ground, blinks against the rain. He’s barely able to see the farm house from where he’s standing. His chest hurts.

Daryl winds down in degrees: sheathing his knife, running his fingers through his rain-slicked hair, standing up. Then he’s still next to Glenn. “Like I said; is all fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Glenn breathes out. The tightness in his throat is easing up.

The sky flashes and rumbles almost instantly, the ground under their feet trembling.

“We should get in,” he half-yells to be heard over the hard rain.

Glenn expects Daryl to say he’ll be staying behind, that Glenn should go – but then Daryl nods sternly and grabs the sleeve of Glenn’s shirt and pulls.

As they run for cover, getting closer and closer the house, closer the others, Glenn thinks maybe not everything is fucked up and wasted. Things will never be the same again, ever – they might lose more people, might lose themselves and their minds as their hope is stretched too thin – but at that moment everything isn’t lost.

They have each other for now, for a moment longer. And it’s not fucked up.

It’s everything.

Glenn curls his fingers around Daryl’s side, bunches his fist into Daryl’s shirt and holds on.


End file.
